Orcad vs Altium

[FriskyFerret]

>Tre: It is all about choosing the right tool for the job.
Agree, and the right tool for the user.

Which is the best one? These threads are often pointless.

Which is best?

Fork or spoon?
Man or woman?
WinXP or Vista?
Maxtor or Seagate?
Compaq or Dell?
Sex from behind or sex from in front?
Microsoft or Linux?
Hot climate or cold climate?
Cricket or football?
Islam or Buddhism?

A 'best' thread that could be productive:

"I am a third year student at university. My major is electrical engineering. I have to do a simple PCB board as part of my project. I don't expect that I'll be doing PCB design after I graduate. I just need to get the one PCB design done with a minimum or hassle and learning. The software has to be free because my advisor frowns on pirated software. What PCB would be best to do the job?"

[ZioFester]

HI,
I wanted opinions care Orcad and Altium Designer  . Which it is the best one? 

[yariny]

I think altium it's better than orcad.
Thx yariny

Posted on: January 17, 2008, 04:37:41 16:37 - Automerged
What does the future hold without OrCAD layout?
22 August 2007
Dave Power, Cadshop - 8/22/2007
OrCAD Layout is the most popular PCB Layout application in South Africa. You cannot buy it any more. A nostalgic feeling is evoked a bit like the last sale of Volkswagen Beetle and Kombi models in the last century. If I could buy it tomorrow, I would, because it was the perfectly priced package, it was easy to learn and use, and it is very capable.

The paradox of the industry is that the biggest buyers of the most complex PCB design tools today, use only one type of chip on their DDR2 PCB … a memory chip. They have such complex timing constraints on every net and layer that it requires integration of signal integrity analysis to interact with trace routers and constraint managers in realtime with the design engineer's input. The end product is a memory module that receives memory data address and delivers data flawlessly at multigigahertz rates in your entry-level PC reliably forever.

This is the story about why OrCAD Layout and many of its competitors have no future.

OrCAD Layout is 'THE' only product being retired by Cadence and appears in OrCAD Unison PCB and Unison Ultra bundles. OrCAD Capture and PSpice have enjoyed most of the R&D spend in the last few years by Cadence, the corporate parent of OrCAD.

OrCAD Capture is the schematic capture tool of choice, and is going to be available for a long time to come. PSpice simulation, the industry standard, will also continue to be a strong player in the simulation market in the future. PSpice has always been the most flexible A/D simulator with the greatest development potential, as it was based on the original Fortran source and not the truncated 'C' compilation of that source. Complex mixed analog/digital circuit simulation is still PSpice's exclusive domain. And the open nature of the Fortran source has allowed extensive application development, that today includes the ability to integrate and simulate complex Matlab mechanical modules in realtime with electronic circuits driving mechanics through motors. The mechanical and electrical output is all displayed graphically on the same graph. Imagine a simple simulation of a motor, gearbox with switches in a control circuit driving windscreen wipers or window winders on a car. These can present complex frictional models in wet and dry and can vary due to ageing of components. Toyota was one of the first adopters of SLPS, the interface that marries PSpice and Matlab.

OrCAD Layout will be supported into 2009. It is most likely that the first problems customers will experience will be when Microsoft Windows XP Pro is no longer available … not soon. It is very important to understand that the South African electronics industry has a brilliant future. We will continue to develop products in large collaborative teams with many global partners. Many established and well known South African automotive, defence and avionic companies as well as many other 'fractionals' engage with Cadshop frequently. These companies all have leading-edge designs and demanding investors are pushing the development cycle from years or months to days.

'Design right first time' has been a tenet of the IC Design industry from 'day one'. This is now also a tenet of the PCB design industry. 'Design spins' ie, each time a prototype is reworked, cost time and money … big time. Cellphone manufacturers say a PCB respin costs $250 000 and 50 000 lost production units per day.

Whew! Lots of pressure and stress. This is mostly felt by the companies using ageing tools. Everyone is feeling the pressure from the IC industry, which is packaging parts in ever shrinking package sizes. Part footprint miniaturisation and high density pin-counts with fast clocks need more care and time to layout in old design tools. Respins are the norm as these older design tools fail to meet routing challenges and timelines for completion.

In 1986 I thought that the real winners would be the low-priced PCB design tools in a graphically challenged world. Today the world is performance challenged. The cumbersome UNIX tools of yesteryear that addressed performance and then graphics were hard to use and very expensive, and actually paved the way for today's needs. This is where OrCAD PCB Designer, the scalable solution to OrCAD Layout's limitations originated. OrCAD PCB Designer is built on UNIX based tools that have been 'trickled down' to the MS Windows environment at a fraction of the original cost.

The South African mantra of 'I need a cheap capable PCB layout tool, I do low frequency small PCB's' has been chanted for 20 years since Cadshop's inception in 1986. It will disappear. New style inexpensive chips with dense pinouts demand a total turnabout of the design philosophy and updated PCB tools.

Designers presently use 80+ pin, multimegahertz embedded controllers with multiple parallel memory and data busses, connected to a few peripheral chips with 40+ pins in the majority of designs. Think of the space all these busses take up on the PCB and the circuitry to latch and deal with the data in hardware. Product miniaturisation today is stifled by pure connectivity issues.

Today the old 10 chip multichip design is still a 10 chip multichip design. The difference is the chips talk to each other on multigigahertz serial busses. The impact of this is that there is a drastic reduction of inter-chip connections and a drastically smaller footprint, lower cost, lower layer count, higher reliability PCB design. It has become a Serial World in such a short space of time that it is news to most engineers.

That it has become a multigigahertz serial world in such a short space of time, is actually bad news to most engineers. Many companies do not realise that the PCB tool an engineer uses costs an equivalent of three months' salary and in a year the investment in that tool exceeds its cost by 400%. Most of Cadshop's design intensive customers have a 15 man-year labour investment in a R30 000 tool at an average salary of R25 000 per month. And the factory runs off this design input. Surely this indicates that the PCB design tool of choice should primarily protect the past investment and offer scalability to the needs of the company in the future.

The PCB design tool needed to achieve the new 'design quantum' is going to seem hard to use at first and will be slow to adopt. We have to lose the notion that the old tools are very capable; they were, for older technology designs, not for tomorrow's designs.

If your next design uses just one chip that needs careful PCB layout you will realise the need to upgrade to the next level of PCB design tool overnight. The added capability and complexity will astound you. If you look around at the world's most complex products today, their origin is in OrCAD PCB Designer and the extended family of Cadence Allegro tools.

OrCAD PCB Designer is the tool of the future for most OrCAD Layout users today. The upgrade is free for many existing users and there are attractive incentives for PADS and PCAD users, as translators are embedded in the product.

[spl]

Now i using Orcad instead of Altium , because of license . Altium is more expensive.
But The working function not too differnce , For me I think altium is a bit easy to use more than orcad for beginer.But for reduce investment cost for license.I think it better to use Orcad.

[Tre]

Orcad is a much more professional and stable CAD tool.  That said, there are some neat features of Altium that can be useful.   I use both, each has their weaknesses and strengths.  It is all about choosing the right tool for the job.

[FriskyFerret]

>Tre: It is all about choosing the right tool for the job.
Agree, and the right tool for the user.

Which is the best one? These threads are often pointless.

Which is best?

Fork or spoon?
Man or woman?
WinXP or Vista?
Maxtor or Seagate?
Compaq or Dell?
Sex from behind or sex from in front?
Microsoft or Linux?
Hot climate or cold climate?
Cricket or football?
Islam or Buddhism?

A 'best' thread that could be productive:

"I am a third year student at university. My major is electrical engineering. I have to do a simple PCB board as part of my project. I don't expect that I'll be doing PCB design after I graduate. I just need to get the one PCB design done with a minimum or hassle and learning. The software has to be free because my advisor frowns on pirated software. What PCB would be best to do the job?"

[mx]

As I know Altium include Version control interface such as CVS, SVN but OrCAD haven't

[SKUPAD]

To answer a question like this the typical course of action would be to speak with an OrCAD sales rep and do an personal evaluation of your design environment and then speak with an Altium sales rep and do the same. Everyone doesn't need the same features and one solution might work for one person and not for another, and there are a lot of other factors that can go into a decision such as this, like technical support.

[pickit2]

"I have to do a simple PCB board as part of my project. I don't expect that I'll be doing PCB design after I graduate. I just need to get the one PCB design done with a minimum or hassle and learning. The software has to be free because my advisor frowns on pirated software. What PCB would be best to do the job?"

FreePCB is free  http://www.freepcb.com/
Eagle do a free version, or you could try one of the pcb makers that give free pcb layout tools.
Pcbpool is one    http://www.pcb-pool.com/ppus/info.html 
they do a FREE: EDA-Software for PCB-POOL® customers!

also you could use Pi-Rated software and export to a free tool.

[jabarok]

I think Altium is better than Orcad. It has version control and much more tool for route by hand.
In thailand Altium is the best popular PCB tool.

[Nata39]

For me I think altium is a bit easy to use more than orcad for beginer, ! more beginer

Posted on: February 18, 2008, 12:25:07 12:25 - Automerged
The Orcad is more complite, major electrical engineering

[adamhorden]

Altium Designer is the industrial standard in allot of design houses. We was taught to use it from year 1 on my electronic engineering degree.

Adam

[frithbar]

Orcad is a better choice, assuming it has a future.  Altium has a history of
failed promises (wrt Protel), and with Designer it looks like they are trying
to do too much.  It will end up being a bloated, buggy behemoth.

[Trishool]

Orcad is a better choice, assuming it has a future.  Altium has a history of
failed promises (wrt Protel), and with Designer it looks like they are trying
to do too much.  It will end up being a bloated, buggy behemoth.

I agree , It is increasing its size , and it still does pretty bad things with auto routing particularly . Orcad Previous versions I have tried during my college days but it was difficult to operate , and was not egronomic with regards to that time Traxmaker(the budding Altium designer) . I dont know what present version is worth .

AD6 is a real better and stable software than Protel99SE etc , but very large in size.


Ts

[xconan2006]

In my opinion, orcad is better in term of the effectiveness cause it has larger working-space. it also runs faster and smoother in compare to Altium. The only things which Al is better is the its lib and all the 3d fansy things.

[jim_17]

I think that Orcad is easier to use, faster, and is Better thank Altium. I used Altium in past but, I didnt like it much.

[fastlink30]

for me orcad, i use it from many times & i think i more friendly (after not much time) to use then altium

[nekitaec]

for the simulation purpose Orcad is more suitable, but its work with PCB bad enough

[mr_byte31]

orcad is the best program in routing and simulation
u can make a PCB on any program and make it on orcad
u will find that it is the best

[magnum]

I use orcad long time ago. I just try altium.
I think altium look like protel dxp. It's more powerfull but difficult use than other.

[rendra]

i use altium protel dxp for many year.For me It's a good schematic and pcb software than the other, but i never use orcad.

[mr_byte31]

then give a try to orcad and u will see the difference

[Vid4r]

Used to work with OrCAD up to 10.5 but changed to Altium 6.5 due to better interoperability between shematic design, pcb layout and supported spice models...

[mr_byte31]

look there is a more better interoperability in orcad
there are a lot of tutorials for orcad u can learn from it much
and u can find that it is the best
look to orcad price and other programs price
you could easily find that orcad is much expensive coz it is much powerful

[novel]

In my exprerience work with Protel after gradate until become to Altium Designer I think Altium it easy to use rapid design and continue to improve but Orcad I feel it hard to use and no books to study in my country.

[makjee]

hi,

In my opinion Altium designer is much better for engineers who want to spend sometime exploring different features which do not address just schematic capture and layout. Ofcourse when it comes to simulating the design, nothing beats PSpice, but then we also have provision for Proteus for doing higher level simulations much elegantly. Similarly the FPGA and embedded feature in Altium is one hell of a leap from conventional cad tools.

I have recently used the Nano board with Altium designer. The whole idea of having a single environment integrate all the aspects front end FPGAs, Microprocessors and the back end in terms of schematics and then the option of designing it all in PCB is overwhelming.

I have used Altium for double sided PCBs and I think I will stick with this tool for better or worse.

Mak

[wnmaximino]

My opinion: Altium designer Summer 08 is the best!

[Giovepluvio]

I have no experience with Orcad and a little one with Altium. In my opinion saying which is the best is pointless. The right question is which is the best for you. I had a chance to learn something about Altium so is the best choice for me.

A very useful thing comes with Altium is the training center on their web site: http://www.altium.com/community/trainingcenter/
Don't know if Orcad has something similar.

[radhaeda]

I prefer Altium over OrCAD. I find it pretty easy to use and learn as a beginner. I have not much of idea about the advanced features of either of the packages. OrCAD might be better as some members suggest, but I am quite satisfied with Altium as it completey suppots my requirements.

[jeniusj]

I think Altium is more appropriately suited for PCB designing rather than Orcad as Altium has more powerful libraries as well as extensive wizard for drawing your own footprints on the basis of mechanical data extracted from the data sheets of the particular component also it has more powerful Design Matrix that help you to design your Layout with more perfection and shurity with ease it is easy to manage schematic and PCB in one workspace panel as Orcad have to manage its schematic and PCB in Capture and Layout Plus individually.
But I appreciate Orcad in its simulation profile it has the results that are better than Altium.Also it has almost the complete toolset required for the better simulation of analog as well as Digital circuits.
Thats all from me about Orcad vs Altium

[efan]

I perfer Orcad, it is easy to use.

[mr_byte31]

easy doesn't mean the best
but it means the best for u

[eoasap]

I've use Altium and love it. The only benefit i've seen with Orcad is the autorouter (specctra), but altium is fantastic. It has SI simulation (2D field solver), integrated code compiler, etc. it is much better with newer versions than say 6.0

Orcad has been rumored to be sold (read a few months ago) so who know's what to expect if that happens.

[anatom]

I think that Orcad is easier to use, faster, and is Better thank Altium. I used Altium in past but, I didnt like it much.

Exactly...

[LEAS]

All depend on that,for what purposes is used. I used OrCAD 9.2, Altium DXP SUITE v2004, PCAD2002 and stopped on last. I do my board manually one sided by means of laser printer and transparencies film. Altium's Situs cannot route one side board and Shape Based router from PCAD too, but PCAD has direct automatically connect with Specctra without difficultys with DO file. Specctra may automatically set jumpers any length. OrCAD 9.2 only 6 types of length. Discussion may be very long.....

[oscar.inc]

orcad is more design, the boards pcb ending beautiful,, but altium is more easy and friendly

[aristiadi]

i think altium is the best because it's easy to use and become the industry standard,

but there's relative 

[RedAlert]

I have worked with both of them, and I can say that in the bottom line it really depends on your needs, and will summarize it as:
for simulation or small PCB project use OrCAD and for medium/serious PCB project use Altium.

Schematic are bit faster to place with OrCAD, but Altium has more possibilities in that area.

Eventually Altium use more modern technologies and their UI are suprior compare to OrCAD.

As I used OrCAD from earlier versions(v7 if I remember correctly), I can say that till now Cadence has not added new and improved features to it, except new UI in the latest version, which is too little and too late...

I think OrCAD could have been a lot better, and it need to die long time ago - but it didn't just because it was good enough that times and easier to learn and because of that users/PCB designer get used with it...

Altium is more industry related and new features are added very fast; Learning curve for Altium is higher than OrCAD.

There are more, but think it is enough for now. Just my 2 cents..

[patoliyarj]

pcb123 : www.pcb123.com

express pcb: www.expresspcb.com

both are  free and very easy to learn and full technical support from manufacturers....

[ali_asadzadeh]

Of course altium is the best it has all needed stuff and you can find it here for free!
there is also eagle which has very nice foot prints and there is an ulp in their site which can export eagle to protel.so you can use these nice footprints in altium.and i think orcad is good for taking exam from students in college in industry you should use something more powerfull.

for pcb and fpga design i suggest altium winter 2009 and for logic simulation and micro controller use proteus 7.4 sp3 and only for analogue simulation use orcad.also in altium web site there are free video tutorials which can help you .

[microfun]

Interfacing to Altium Designer from SolidWorks http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIkx86l5s_M

[oscar.inc]

I talk, the experience with software, I use the two systems (OrCAD and Altium)

orcad have enough tools, many unnecessary

OrCAD take many computer resources, the simulation is good, but I prefer to simulate proteus for digital circuits .... multisim for analog circuits and often are better applications proposed by manufacturers in their pages and know that we discussed about (OrCAD and Altium)  not be of more comment to reference and compare

be difficult to create libraries, is unfriendly, and in doing simulation, is slow due to resource-intensive computer in facility occupies more than 5 GB

Altium is lighter and friendly, is very simple and easy to create libraries, besides that resource usage is moderate, I prefer to make diagrams and pcb design, pcb libraries are very easy to customize, plus they can migrate very simplest to other platforms, such as: autocad, photoshop, adobe reader, microsoft word, etc, just to name a few

those are the most significant advantages it has, from my opinion

tell them again that I prefer to simulation multisim and Proteus

Greetings my dear friends sonsivri community 

remember, the best tool is the one you, know how to use. 

[igor_d24]

I tried to switch to Altium from OrCAD / Layout (which is discontinued) quite recently. The main disadvantage of Altium for me was its extreme slowness when working with libraries (after you open a few). OrCAD / Allegro set-up is much faster. So I decided to go back to OrCAD and learn Allegro.

[Unhappy]

Altium Designer is best nothing comes near to it

[txjammer]

We should create a poll. I'm for Altium. You can export the board to a step file for assembly in a cad project, or even import and create a board based on the imported 3d model.

[dipchip]

I also vote Altium...it does EXACTLY what I tell it to and nothing more.
The last update gave CONTROL-DEL on a track... wow, is that handy.

--Chip

[santiniuk]

Also a firm vote for Altium here. The company I worked for moved from Orcad to Altium a few years back and everyone soon preferred Altium. As mentioned the ability to export a step model is a real advantage. The mechanical engineers pick this up and place it in our product models.
I do no FPGA development so cannot comment on this side of it.

[mgparrish]

Altium here.

One bad thing Altium is now doing is pushing to move everything into the "cloud". They haven't gone as far as Adobe has and gone completely subscription based, but appears they are heading in that direction.

If you need 3D Altium is superior in that respect, as the OP mentioned MECHS can easily take the files. Getting and entire 3d PCBAs into Solid Works is fairly straightforward.

[Brosske]

Altium has extreem slow site... :-(

Personally I use OrCAD 16.0 - Designer & Layout...
Quite happy about it, but not pushing the soft to it's limits either ...

Greetz

[2funpars]

I am very confused about altium vs orcad. At this point I use Orcad 16.0 Layout and it is time to change it.

I have installed both designer. Altium looks better. But when importing orcad schematics, I couldn't manage to convert them properly...

[pickit2]

far too many pissing contests, the one that is better, is the one that you are happy with.